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Osmo
- vinkelhake 12y agoThat looks awesome. I'm considering ordering one for the kids. This paragraph is pretty hilarious though: "Osmo is crafted for kid‑durability and always ready to go: no batteries, or Wi-Fi required." Well, yeah.. Except for the actual iPad.
- pseudometa 12y agoHad you read the next sentence, you may not be confused. "Osmo is crafted for kid‑durability and always ready to go: no batteries, electronics, or Wi‑Fi required. Works with the latest iPads including the iPad 2 and iPad Mini."
- Osiris 12y agoThat's a pretty big deal considering that I only have one Android tablet and no iPads.
- easytiger 12y agoLooks likeyou just saved a fortune on buying shitty accessory kits which will be used for a day and then discarded
- knowaveragejoe 12y agoI imagine that given the array of Android tablets it's much harder to design such a thing for them, not just because of the differing physical form factors but because of the varying capabilities of the cameras themselves.
- digitalpacman 12y agoThis blew me away.
- sutterbomb 12y agoLooks interesting. I want that technology but just to transfer paper notes/sketches to digital. I've tried using stylus on iPad for wireframes etc. but I can't quite get it to work same as sharpie & paper.
- netrus 12y agoYou might want to try the Google Drive document scanner function!
- danielweber 12y agoOkay, I don't get the product, but I'm impressed that as you scroll down the screen, the Osmo drops onto the iPad, and then the iPad drops into its holder.
- TruthSHIFT 12y agoI love this so much. But, when I step back and look at what you're getting for $58, I'm wondering why I can't build one myself. It looks like I'll need an iPad stand, a small mirror, and a fisheye lens. Then, I'll just use the same apps as the other Osmo users.
- dkrich 12y agoReally? How much are a mirror that you have to fashion yourself, a fisheye lens, and an iPad stand going to cost you? And after you've found all that you still don't have the games. $58 shipped to you seems pretty reasonable to me.
- joshcrowder 12y agoMy thoughts exactly $58 is a decent price, there are a lot of scrooges in here. The argument of "geez i can build this in a day and the materials will cost me less than 10 bucks" are tiresome and stupid. If you value your time at more than $2 an hour its a good price.
- abraininavat 12y agoYou do realize this is called Hacker News, right? People in here enjoy hacking things. We don't all consider the utility of every activity based on how many dollars per hour we value our time.
- timdiggerm 12y ago>Top educators from over 150 elementary schools nationwide, including the Bay Area’s best preparatory institutions, are raving about Osmo’s natural ability to foster creative, social, and emotional learning ‑ and how much their students love it. If there's one thing I, as a teacher, do not trust, it's when teachers (sorry, I mean "educators") get excited about technology. (Doubly so if educators = administration)
- StefanKarpinski 12y agoAlthough "educators" being excited about technology certainly doesn't guarantee that it will be great, it's not a negative signal either. Singling this out for such cynical focus when there's so much other content here to comment on seems unwarranted.
- druidsbane 12y agoI would love to see this with a giant screen. The iPad is great but kids needs space and room to play. Great start and I really feel that things like this will have a great impact in the future.
- dpark 12y agoI'm sure this would be fun on a giant screen, but it's not necessary. Kids play with tablets and phones all the time. Large screens are not a prerequisite for enjoyable playtime.
- sergiotapia 12y agoIf I lived in the states I would buy one for my kids in a heartbeat. The newton game looks like something even I would enjoy! Great job guys!
- huhtenberg 12y agoLooks great, but it really needs an independent review.
- Greenisus 12y agoI don't understand all the hate in this thread. This is a clever and creative use of technology that combines a favorite toy (iPad) with the one thing it lacks: physical interaction with real world objects. From what I understand (I'm a new dad so I'm still reading and learning), this sort of thing is very important for a developing mind.
- wuliwong 12y agoI'm with you. People citing their absence of research and their certainty that this will be discarded in a day is amusing. What those academic papers lack is an actual product and customers deciding to buy and use that product of their own free will. When someone releases an app to "connect people" or make some day-to-day taks easier, nobody seems to want academic papers to back their claims. I also feel like it goes without saying that this will most likely be discarded in a day but so will 99% of the products we build as startups. That's the great thing about today's environment. We get to experiment in the real world with real people and real products! Enjoy it while it lasts is my suggestion.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- thedufer 12y ago> When someone releases an app to "connect people" or make some day-to-day taks easier, nobody seems to want academic papers to back their claims. Most people are qualified to evaluate whether an app is allowing them to connect with others. On the other hand, they are not qualified to evaluate whether a product is educating their child. Education claims are widespread and difficult to disprove, but rarely come with any proof. It is completely rational to expect some.
- bruceboughton 12y agoNo it's not. No one is saying buy this and don't play with your kids as well. This is one tool among many.
- 12y ago
- mikeash 12y agoOK, seriously, why is it so hard for companies to just tell me what their product is? I guess it's some sort of augmented reality thing? With a clip-on mirror? (???) And a standard Tangram game? "For the first time, fun knows no limits." Did somebody redesign zombo.com for the 21st century and try to attach a product to it? There are so many beautiful product pages out there which completely fail at the basic task of telling people what they're selling. It's baffling.
- dragonwriter 12y ago> There are so many beautiful product pages out there which completely fail at the basic task of telling people what they're selling. It's baffling. Its not at all baffling. Selling product is about creating feelings of need for the product, not creating an accurate rational understanding of what the product does. There's a few markets (like marketing development tools to developers -- but, notably, not marketing developing tools to non-developer executives) where those two distinct issues happen to be somewhat (though not perfectly) aligned, but quite often they are unrelated or even opposed. Video, as a medium, is very good at conveying desired emotional messages, and poor for conveying rational understanding (this is why, for decades, it has been observed that, that is, all other things being equal, watching more TV news makes you understand current events less, unlike consuming news in print media; it is also why video is a prime medium for advertisement.)
- mikeash 12y agoDo companies really try to create a feeling of need in people who don't even know what it is? Certainly there's a ton of advertising out there that rests on "feeling of need", but it's always for stuff that everybody knows about. That subtle Rolex ad doesn't need to tell you "this device tells you what time it is wherever you go" because everybody already knows what a wristwatch is. Coca-Cola ads can focus on cute animated polar bears instead of "this is a carbonated sweet drink" because everybody knows their product. (Even then, they almost always show people actually drinking the stuff.) If you have a new product, one that you're saying is different from anything else out there, surely you need to tell people what it is if you want them to think they need it.
- bullfight 12y agoI really like this. It seems to me to be an early approximation of Neal Stephenson's A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer from The Diamond Age. A commensurate companion, guide, and teacher. Sure this may only be a few activities but the responsiveness and seeming magic to it is fantastic. I particularly like that you can set down a toy in front of the camera and it renders out a flat illustrated version of that toy.
- DonHopkins 12y agoHere's a free "magic" iPad app that I'm developing, which doesn't require any gadgets! http://pantomimecorp.com/ http://pantomimecorp.com/ https://search.itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZContentLink.woa/wa/link?mt=8&path=apps%2fpantomime3d https://search.itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZContentLink.woa...
- dlinder 12y agoHey Don! I was about to post a link to your new gig when I spotted that you had beaten me to it!
- DonHopkins 12y agoThanks -- here's a video demonstrating the new networked multi player version of Pantomime that we're showing at Augmented World Expo! Pantomiming with your friends in AR is a whole new ball game! We'll appreciate your vote for "Best Augmented World Video" in the Augmented World Expo competition, please -- your vote will really help, because we're currently in second place! http://augmentedworldexpo.com/auggie-category/auggies-best-augmented-world-video/ http://augmentedworldexpo.com/auggie-category/auggies-best-a... Click on the "Pantomime Corporation" entry to see our video of the new multi player version, which just won the Launch: Silicon Valley World Cup Tech Challenge in the Digital Media Mobile group. http://www.heraldonline.com/2014/05/21/5986165/svforum-announces-2014-winners.html http://www.heraldonline.com/2014/05/21/5986165/svforum-annou...
- abraininavat 12y agoDid I miss something? This thing looks like a cool toy, but how is it a companion, guide, or teacher, any more than any other interactive toy or game?
- GhotiFish 12y agoTo be fair, tangrams are pretty fun. Young me would rather it just show me the silhouette than showing me where to put the tans though.
- cmiller1 12y agoDid anyone else get excited expecting something related to this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Osmo_and_the_Worlds_Beyond_the_Mackerel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Osmo_and_the_Worlds_Beyo...
- DonHopkins 12y agoMe too! I remember watching some little kids (who are now in their 30's) delightfully playing Cosmic Osmo, and explaining it to the adults.
- duskwuff 12y agoA web-based version of Cosmic Osmo would have been pretty cool. Alas!
- cristyansv 12y agolooks like a google product
- rplnt 12y agoWhat's with the weird space between "Pre" and "Order Osmo" in the header? Also, the percentage doesn't add up. Or is it supposed to be with shipping? By the way, the price is ridiculous. Even the discounted one. That puzzle sells for about 4$ (that's with profit), let's be generous and say that the app itself is worth $10 (which it isn't) and we are left with $85 for a mirror embedded in plastic? Shipping not included?! That being said, nice idea, I haven't seen it done before. Possibilities to extend this are great.
- rplnt 12y agoConstructive criticism (first two questions) and explanation why the price is insane downvoted without single response. Awesome job.
- GuiA 12y agoThe company introduces Osmo, an iPad suite of games for children which uses the iPad's camera to use physical tiles on a traditional tabletop as input. The demonstrated games include tangram, a tile based word guessing game, and a physics-engine based game in which players must draw a path for falling objects to hit targets. While the product describes itself as using "reflective artificial intelligence, a groundbreaking technology that bridges the real and digital realms for unlimited possibilities of play", it falls under what we in academic HCI call "tangible interaction", following Shaer & Hornecker's definition: "Interfaces that are concerned with providing tangible representations to digital information and controls, allowing users to quite literally grasp data with their hand and effect functionality by physical manipulations of these representations." [0] The four claims typically made when introducing tangible interfaces in products for children are usability benefits, learning benefits, collaboration benefits, and fun benefits [1]. Osmo does not escape to the rule, claiming all 4 in its marketing copy. While Osmo does not include any information about research conducted with it that would demonstrate those claims, similar systems have been proposed in the past. The word game is mirrored in Dekel & al's Spelling Bee [2], a game which uses wooden letter blocks instead of Osmo's Scrabble tiles, and LEDs embedded in the cubes to provide player feedback. The authors report high engagement from the test audience (children 7-12), but no learning assessment or long term engagement study was performed (arguably 2 of the most important metrics). The tangram game is mirrored in past research projects, including Scarlatos & al's [3] tangram game. Xie & al's [4] paper performs a user study on 3 implementations of a puzzle game: physical, GUI based, tangible. The authors report finding same self-reported level of enjoyments from the test users on all 3. However, they report that repeat play was more significant in the physical & tangible version of the game, which does not create an argument in the favor of Osmo. They do report significant gender effects in the way of collaboration, which could be relevant for Osmo: "While all gender pairings’ mean scores on the Interest and Enjoyment subscale were nearly the same for the TUI condition, the boy-boy pairs had significantly higher scores than the girl-girl and girl-boy pairs for the GUI condition. In addition, the girl-girl pair scores were significantly higher for the traditional PUI condition than for either of the computational conditions (GUI, TUI). For girl-girl pairs mean scores for Perceived Competence subscale were also higher for the PUI condition than for either of the GUI or TUI conditions. Mean scores for boy-boy pairs were highest for the GUI condition." The last game implemented by Osmo, the physics game, is the least interesting of the 3 as it has less claims to educational value than the other 2. However, it is reminiscent of several similar tabletop based tangible systems and augmented reality systems. [5] Unfortunately I have to go work now, and the edit window will be over when I'm back online :( But for readers who found the above interesting, I will leave a few more relevant papers [6][7][8][9] [0] Shaer & Hornecker, "Tangible user interfaces: past, present, and future directions", 2010 [1] Zaman & al., "Editorial: the evolving field of tangible interaction for children: the challenge of empirical validation", Personal Ubiquitous Computing, 2012 [2] Dekel & al, "The Spelling Bee: An Augmented Physical Block System that Knows how to Spell", ACE, 2007 [3] Scarlatos & al, "TICLE: using multimedia multimodal guidance to enhance learning" [4] Xie & al, " Are Tangibles More Fun? Comparing Children's Enjoyment and Engagement Using Physical, Graphical and Tangible User Interfaces ", TEI 2008 [5] Krzywinski & al, "RoboTable: A Tabletop Framework for Tangible Interaction with Robots in a Mixed Reality" [6] Antle & al, "Hands on What? Comparing Children’s Mouse-based and Tangible-based Interaction", IDC 2009 [7] Resnick & al, " Programmable Bricks: Toys to Think With", IBM Systems Journal, 1996 [8] Price & al, "Let's get physical: Learning Benefits of interacting in digitally augmented physical spaces" , 2004 [9] Resnick, "Edutainment? No thanks I prefer Playful Learning", 2004
- rwhitman 12y agoI wonder if there are other use cases for a little iPad augmented reality app on a stand beyond kids stuff
- sendos 12y agoGreat product (at least from an ingenuity point of view; would be interesting to see how kids react to it) Side question: What is this style of info presentation called? Basically, a full-page-width webpage, with very sparse information that slowly shows up as you scroll down. I'm not too fond of it, but I see it a lot lately, so I assume it has been shown to lead to higher conversion rates. Does this presentation style have a name?
- camus2 12y agoLooks SO awesome! that's the kind of article i like to see on HN!.Looks great,cant wait my kids to try that.
- cJ0th 12y agoHow do these games benefit from including a tablet? From what I can learn from the video the tablet assists you with counting points and lets you know when you've arrived at the right answer. Sure, it makes things more convenient. But what is wrong (from an educational point of view) with letting children add their points/checking their solutions themselves?
- Shihan 12y agoIt benefits the companies which sell tables and such games. If the game benefits from it, I have my doubts.
- rainmaking 12y agoNot a bad idea in the last, but I strongly suspect my kids would be more interested in creatively disassembling the iPad than playing with Osmo.
- pastaking 12y agoThis is brilliant! Amazing job guys!
- rainmaking 12y agoNeeding to give kids an iPad raises all sorts of issues: Cost, breakage, internet exposure... I would be very likely to buy a self-contained colored digital etch-a-sketch that logs everything ever drawn on it, which I can later put on my computer. I know that would be very big brother of me, but it's for cute's sake!
- thoughtpalette 12y agoit's really simple to turn kiosk mode on in your iPad. It makes the app full screen and you can only exit out with a pin you set up when you launch kiosk.
- tbolse 12y agoThere is a similar "augmented reality puzzle game" for adults called Reflow. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/reflow/id444083164?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/reflow/id444083164?mt=8 It was released Jun 01, 2012.
- Pxtl 12y agoIt's a neat concept - a nice, polished AR kit. The actual tangram concept is a bit disappointing though - dragging simple objects around on a flat surface is already something the iPad excels at. In this case it feels like it's somewhat obsoleted by modern touch-screens. Obviously there are cases where touch-screens fail, but simple tangram puzzles work just fine with them. I'd be interested in seeing this expanded to things that require too large a play-area to do conveniently with a tablet, or that involve manipulation that doesn't correspond to simple dragging (which you can already do well on the iPad). Either that or focus on vision-impaired students. Maybe a set of braille algebra-tiles[1]? [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebra_tile http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebra_tile
- minalecs 12y agoI disagree, on the tangram aspect. Most games have an almost auto snap feature that if you drag the piece close enough it just snaps into place. I like the fact that it takes more of hand eye coordination and understanding of physical space for the physical objects to create the shapes on screen.
- ja27 12y agoAnd rotating a tangram on the iPad takes two touchpoints, where the physical one can be rotated with a single finger.
- cben 12y agoAuto-snap, and most importantly inability to rotate, allowed my 1.5yo kid to solve puzzles when he wasn't yet able to solve wooden puzzles well. After an intense period of solving those non-stop (I believe it's first time he strongly experienced the positive reinforcement of winning a game), he also easily does the wooden puzzles. I don't have any data on whether that's indeed a win developement-wise, but I'm excited that easy software tweaks (which would be impractical in physical product — how do you stop one from rotating pieces?) can dramatically affect kid's ability to engage them.
- minalecs 12y agoI don't know I just get the overwhelming feeling that a lot of people aren't parents in this thread. My daughter loves these types of puzzle games on our touch devices. As soon as I saw the video, I have a good feeling she will like it. Really it looks fun , and the word game looks like something we can do together. I'm excited about this product. I really could care less about the actual learning aspects and more interested in the technology + fun aspect.
- eykanal 12y agoAm I the only one who saw this and was hoping it was an online remake of Cyan's Cosmic Osmo [1]? [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Osmo_and_the_Worlds_Beyond_the_Mackerel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Osmo_and_the_Worlds_Beyo...
- at-fates-hands 12y agoApparently I'm the only one. I used to play this over at a neighbors house all the time when I was a little ankle biter.
- joshcrowder 12y agoI don't have any kids but I'm buying one this is awesome - Looking forward to getting one of these to play with.
- radmuzom 12y agoPoor website. Till I read the comments here, I could not figure out in 30 seconds what the product does except that it uses artificial intelligence.
- artellectual 12y agoI am definitely getting this for my daughter.
- coreymgilmore 12y agoThis is a great product. To me, the video (while marketing) showed exactly how kids would react to something like this. Nowadays, all kids know how to use an iPad so throwing in the physical pieces as well brings back the "legacy" way of playing. Plus, it has a nice teaching aspect and i could imagine a dual iPad "versus" mode to encourage a little competition.
- furyofantares 12y agoI played with this at the NY toy fair in February. The words game is really cool, you find yourself digging through letters as quickly as possible while trying to form the word but you also have to watch to make sure you are actually on the right track before you shove too many out there, and watch the other player too. The game is scored by giving you points for getting the word but you also lose points for every letter you shove in that isn't right. If you want you can just shove the whole stack in front, you'll instantly solve the puzzle but with an enormous negative score. Something about that particular game is an experience I haven't had with either physical or digital games before, whereas most physical/digital hybrids I've seem could just as easily be done purely in one or both realms. The tangram seemed like a bit of a dud for that reason, for example. It is nice to be able to get hints while playing physical tangrams (it can show you just the outline but tell you if you have a piece in the right spot), but that isn't really that much of an improvement over just having the pieces or just an iPad game. The physics game where you draw on the pad is a strange demo to me. You can just do it as a drawing game without the paper, which is a bit less social, but again, this isn't much of an improvement. What is really cool, though, is the interactive outline of your hand or any object you put in front of it. But it doesn't really encourage that in any way, it just feels like a tech demo. All that said, this product does excite me just because the word game gave me a feeling I haven't gotten in either a purely physical or purely digital space.
- fiatjaf 12y agoAt first I thought this was a stupid, idea. In the, I became excited and envisioned a lot of opportunities for cool games. I don't know why there are people in this thread talking about school and education. This is a toy. A toy should not be designed to educate. Kids play videogames the whole day these days. Osmo could bring them out of the videogame, make them interact with objects, not to learn, but to play, only. This should not be confined to small kids games, but also to all kinds of games, and other uses as well.
- mmcclure 12y agoI have siblings with kids (and iPads) so this looks like a perfect timeline for a Christmas present...but it's never a good sign when you try to give someone money and they won't take your CC because they're doing validation wrong. -_-
- mcosta 12y agoThe hate here, I believe, is because the ad is very artificial and the the children are clearly acting. Too obvious.